This is directed to providing recommendations of media items to a user of an electronic device. In particular, this is directed to recommending media items that are part of a user's library but that are not locally stored or immediately accessible by an electronic device in use by the device.
Many electronic devices can play back one or more types of media items. For example, an electronic device can play back audio files. As another example, an electronic device can play back video files. The electronic device can access the media files being played back from any suitable source. For example, the media files can be streamed from a remote source (e.g., from a server farm provided by a content provider or from a user's host device). As another example, the media files can be locally stored and accessed for playback. A user can direct the electronic device to play back any suitable media files. In some embodiments, the media files can correspond to freely available media. Alternatively, the media files can correspond to media purchased by the user (e.g., purchased outright or purchased as part of a subscription service). The particular media files accessible to the user or owned by the user can form a user's media library.
In some cases, an electronic device used by the user may have limited local storage. In particular, the local storage may be less than the size of the user's media library, such that the user cannot store the entire library locally on the device. The user may then be forced to select a subset of the library for local storage and local playback. If the electronic device cannot connect to the media library (e.g., the host device storing the media library is not remotely accessible, or the electronic device cannot connect to a communications network), the user of the electronic device may not be able to play every song from the user's library using the electronic device. The user may then be required to select a particular subset of media items of interest to play back using the device.
The user can select the subset of locally stored media items using any suitable approach. In some embodiments, the user can select media items of a particular genre, by a particular artist, in a particular album, or having any other suitable metadata value or combination of metadata values. In other embodiments, the user can define one or more playlists of media items to synch to the electronic device. The playlists can be generated using any suitable approach, including in response to receiving user selections of particular media items, based on one or more seed media items, received from a remote source (e.g., receive recommendations from a friend), or any other suitable approach.
Because these approaches require a user to define the media items locally stored on the device, the user may forget about or rarely hear media items that are not transferred to the electronic device. Depending on the amount of media items that are not locally stored, the user may not be able to discover or re-discover significant portions of the user's media. This may limit the user's ability to enjoy the user's media library and the user's electronic device.